This one’s a little longer than usual, perhaps a little more specifically placed than usual, and it won’t be for everyone, but I’m placing it here for those who need to hear it…
I wanted to write about something today that has really stuck with me after accepting that what I experienced was a form of narcissistic abuse.
It still seems so strange for me to even say that out aloud, because I never even considered what I went through to be abuse at the time because it had been so carefully disguised and normalised, but the evidence doesn't lie.
I was naive to the red flags, to boundaries, to their toxic and disrespectful behaviours, to their manipulation, and the truth be told I didn’t even know what a narcissist even was at the time.
It wasn’t until later on out of desperation when I began engaging and speaking with people about what I had been through and what I was feeling, that I started to learn the truth and they had to be the ones to point out the obvious that wasn’t so obvious to me.
And once you accept and acknowledge what the truth really was, the unpacking of everything begins to come to the surface and you start to begin the process of slowing having to heal everything within you that fell apart.
For me, there was nothing left; my time with this person had completely decimated every part of who I was, every aspect of my life, and decimated everything I had spent my entire life building, and so everything since then has been a rebuilding from the ground up in so many different ways.
The person I am today is vastly different to the person they once knew, and the person I am today would never tolerate any part of what they put me through.
But there’s one particular piece of me that I really struggled to get back; music…
And as I’ve learned, it’s extremely common for narcissistic abuse survivors to find themselves unable to listen to music for quite a long period of time afterwards.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still attended concerts of artists and bands that I love, and I still listen to new songs from my favourite artists when they release them, but there’s a detachment when it comes to music now.
I can’t just leave music playing in the background at home anymore, I don't play music while I'm driving anymore; I prefer silence now, and the space for my thoughts to make their way through.
Music was always something that I truly loved, but somehow it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Now to some people this might not seem like such a big deal, but to me music had always been everything.
For me there was something devastating about losing my connection to music.
Music had always been my refuge, my safe space, and the one thing I absolutely loved ever since I was quite young; music was my thing.
I sang, I played guitar and piano, I wrote well over two hundred songs, and I even had the chance to play with some very famous singers and musicians back in the day.
When I was in my teen years I would spend my entire weekends in my room writing music; song after song, riff after riff, lyric after lyric, and melody after melody.
It was my favourite thing to do.
I remember when I was young that I wanted to be Michael Jackson.
I wanted to be a performer just like him and I'd spend hours upon hours watching footage of him, listening to his music, and trying to understand the intricacies of his songwriting.
I was mesmerised by him and I saw the way that he moved people with his music, I felt how his music moved me, and I wanted to be able to do that for others.
But life as it turned out had other plans and different paths it wanted to take me down, but still, my love for music always remained as my anchor.
Music was more than just music for me, it was my outlet and like a friend that was there for me through every stage of my life.
So losing my connection to music later on was devastating for me; it was the one thing I truly enjoyed and suddenly I couldn’t enjoy it anymore.
Again, for some people, this might sound insignificant maybe even silly, but I know that I’m not the only one who hasn’t been able to listen to music again after narcissistic abuse; and for those who’ve lived it, it is very significant.
Music isn’t just background noise, it’s emotion, memory, identity, and escape.
It’s the thing that expressed how you were feeling or held you together when nothing else could.
So when that disappears it feels like you’ve lost a part of yourself that you don’t know how to get back.
And for those who have experienced this, no, you’re not imagining it; this experience is more common than what people talk about.
Narcissistic abuse doesn’t just hurt you in obvious ways, it rewires how your nervous system responds to the world.
When you’ve been in a prolonged state of survival and emotional stress your brain no longer prioritises the joy you once took from things like music; it no longer prioritises creativity, or emotional openness, but instead prioritises safety.
Music requires vulnerability; it asks you to feel.
And for someone who’s been hurt deeply, especially in ways that made them question themselves, their worth, or their emotional safety, feeling can become overwhelming rather than comforting.
Songs that once brought joy and happiness can suddenly feel too intense, too triggering, or strangely empty.
Silence feels safer than risking what might come up.
But there’s also the layer of association.
Music is often tied to memories, and if your relationship involved certain songs, moments, or emotional states connected to music, your brain may start avoiding it altogether as a form of protection.
Not because you don’t love music anymore, but because your body remembers what it felt like to be hurt, and sometimes it’s even deeper than that.
After narcissistic abuse, many people experience a kind of emotional numbness.
It’s not that you don’t have feelings, it’s that your system has temporarily dialled them down to protect you from overload.
The music which once amplified your emotions, no longer feels the same way; it’s like your internal volume has been turned down, and the connection just isn’t there.
But none of this means it’s gone forever, it just means that your system is healing in the only way it knows how.
What you’re experiencing isn’t a loss of who you are; it’s a protective response, and a sign that your mind and body are trying to create space after feeling overwhelmed for so long.
So I wanted to write this because I know others feel the same and if that’s you, I want you to know that you’re not broken; you’re responding exactly as someone would after being emotionally pushed beyond their limits.
The silence you’re sitting in right now isn’t emptiness, it’s recovery.
The truth is, if you miss music, that already says everything; you haven’t lost that part of you, it’s still there, just waiting for a moment where it feels safe enough to come back.
Right now, it might feel like something is missing, like a version of you exists somewhere in the past that you can’t quite reach anymore, but this silence is just a space in between.
A space where your nervous system is slowly healing, recalibrating again, and learning that it doesn’t have to brace itself anymore.
And one day, the music will come back in a way that doesn’t hurt anymore.
And in that moment, you’ll realise that nothing was taken from you, music didn’t really leave you, and you didn’t lose your ability to feel it.
It was never gone, it was protected, and held at a distance while you were healing in ways you couldn’t always see.
The music's still there, it isn’t gone; it’s just waiting for when you’re ready to feel it, and when you're ready to finally dance again…
~ Mark Smith